Arsenal Would Qualify For Champions League If…

Arsenal were hoping for a favour from Westbrom haven put up quite a stubborn fight against champions Chelsea in their last outing, but that was not the case as Manchester City came out 3-1 winners and maintained their three-point advantage over arsenal.

Even though Alexis Sanchez inspired Arsenal to a 2-0 win over Sunderland to keep their slim hopes of a top-four finish alive, but the result at Etihad means the Gunners do not really quite have their fate in their hands.

Arsenal’s chances of a top-four finish look unrealistic to say the least, with just one round of matches to go.

But who says its over…of course there is yet still some hope!

There are about four doors through which Arsenal could sneak in to the Europe’s premier competition again. lets take a look at these doors:

Front Door – Apprehend Manchester City

This is more of a brazen attempt! here, Arsenal have no choice but to just walk through the front door and win against Everton, more like condemned to get all three points against Everton and then hope City lose in their final match away to watford.

And in the unlikely event of a City slip up, Arsene Wenger’s men would also need to recoup a seven goal difference between City.

As it stands currently, Arsenal have a goal difference of +31, while City boasts +37, so either Arsenal would need to win big or City lose badly…or both!

Option B – Simply Overtake Liverpool

This appears to be the easiest of the doors for Arsenal to walk through. Here all that requires is an Arsenal win against Everton + a Liverpool lose or draw against Middlesbrough and Arsenal are in the Champions League.

Option C – Narrowly Pip Liverpool on goal difference/goals scored

To walk through this door into the Champions League, Arsenal do not necessarily need to win their final match, all they need is a Liverpool loss.

Here, what ever makes Liverpool lose to Middlesbrough, Arsenal would only require one point and two goals.

what this means here is that, Arsenal and Liverpool would be tied on points and goal difference, but Arsenal would scale through as a result of their marginally higher goals scored figure.

However, a goalless draw would not be sufficient unless Liverpool lose by three or more goals.

Back door – End-of-season play-off

Surprisingly, with the way things are shaping up, we can not totally rule out the possibility that both Arsenal and Liverpool could end up on exactly same number of points, as they already currently have almost same number of goals scored and almost same goal difference – just one goal difference respectively.

Clearly, it seems unrealistic that such situation as this would occur, but say it does occur, then Arsenal and Liverpool would have to compete in an end-of-season play-off at a neutral ground to determine which of them is higher in the standings. And this could in turn be Arsenal’s backdoor into the Champions League just as Jose Mourinho is looking to winning the Europa as his backdoor into the champions league.

whether these doors would be open when Arsenal come knocking remains to be seen, only time will tell. But we have seen weirder things in fooball!!!